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Is Vista prettier in pink?

Autor admin | 29.03.2008 | Category Microsoft, Windows

Sometimes, internationalizing Microsoft’s products just means translating the same, boring packaging into another language.

Every now and then, though, one of Microsoft’s subsidiaries goes out on a limb. Such is the case with a new bundle Microsoft has in Japan that combines Windows Vista Home Premium with Windows Live OneCare in one eye-popping hot pink box. (Kudos to Long Zheng for spotting this one.)

I’m not sure how much adding hot pink will add to the software’s appeal (though it has made Hello Kitty’s career), but it is interesting to see Microsoft thinking of new ways to sell its gear.

I did some more poking around on the Microsoft Japan Web site and found another marketing approach that might have more global appeal than pink packaging. On its site there, Microsoft has a cool Japanese cartoon prize fight between Windows XP and Windows Vista, really illustrating how the new OS is different than its predecessor in areas like desktop search, security, and performance.

Its U.S. marketing, by contrast, just didn’t seem to do the trick when it comes to really making a compelling case for an upgrade.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has talked about the company’s need to do better when it comes to Vista marketing, and I think the U.S. folks might want to take a page from their Japanese counterparts. In case there was ambiguity here, that page is the prizefight one. I’m not that into pink.

Maybe instead of Johnny Knoxville, what Microsoft really needs is a little more Ralph Macchio.

news.com

Free Web version of Photoshop launches

Autor admin | 27.03.2008 | Category Internet News, Software

SAN FRANCISCO - The maker of the popular photo-editing software Photoshop on Thursday launched a basic version available for free online.

San Jose, Calif.-based Adobe Systems Inc. says it hopes to boost its name recognition among a new generation of consumers who edit, store and share photos online.

While Photoshop is designed for trained professionals, Adobe says Photoshop Express, which it launched in a "beta" test version, is easier to learn. User comments will be taken into account for future upgrades.

Photoshop Express will be completely Web-based so consumers can use it with any type of computer, operating system and browser. And, once they register, users can get to their accounts from different computers.

Web-based software is increasingly popular, and Adobe knows it’s got to get on that train, said Kathleen Maher, an analyst at Jon Peddie Research.

Many kinds of software are available for use online in a trend known as "software as a service," or "cloud computing." The earliest were e-mail programs, but they now include services to create and manage content and even whole operating systems. And they don’t require time-consuming upgrades because they’re maintained by the service provider.

Google Inc. provides a host of such services, as do Microsoft Corp. and others.

"This is the battlefield where Adobe and Microsoft and Google are going to fight some pretty big battles," Maher said.

Photoshop enters the online photo-management arena many years after such services first appeared. Some companies have already made a big name for themselves, like 9-year-old storage solution Shutterfly Inc., photo-editing service Picnik or image-sharing site Photobucket Inc.

Adobe says providing Photoshop Express for free is part marketing and part a strategy to create up-sell opportunities. It hopes some customers will move from it to boxed software like its $99 Photoshop Elements or to a subscription-based version of Express that’s in the works.

Ron Glaz, a research analyst at IDC, says the move was necessary for Adobe to keep pace. Users are less likely to switch to a software they aren’t familiar with, he said.

"They have a whole market that they are missing out on, and they need to make sure that the market is aware there is a Photoshop solution for them. As that market grows and becomes more sophisticated, hopefully it will generate money," Glaz said.

"It’s one of those things, if you can’t beat them, join them," Glaz said. "If they don’t join them, the long run could be really painful."

On the Web: http://www.photoshop.com/express

YouTube to provide more viewership info

Autor admin | 27.03.2008 | Category Internet News, YouTube

NEW YORK - The popular video-sharing site YouTube is giving contributors more details about who’s watching their video clips and when, offering advertisers additional insights they can use to target their pitches.

The free program, known as YouTube Insight, also could help bands schedule their concerts and help anyone time the release of a new video.

The launch of Insight on Thursday comes as Google Inc. looks for ways to make money off its $1.76 billion purchase of YouTube in 2006. Despite growing interest in online video ads, many marketers have stayed away from user-generated video like what’s on YouTube.

Marketers who buy ads on YouTube already get a bevy of statistics about the performance of their ads. The new program breaks down viewership by day and shows the states or countries where most viewers are.

A movie studio that uploads a trailer for free on YouTube could use those details to see where the clip is most popular and perhaps buy ads targeted to users in that region — on YouTube and even on television.

But everyday contributors also can benefit from the new program, said Tracy Chan, a YouTube program manager. Until now, those users got limited information, such as how many times their video was viewed or commented on.

The new tools "give a lot of context around the performance of video over time, where are your audience coming from and how your message is connecting to your audience," Chan said.

A band could use that information to plan stops on a tour, while video producers who find their viewership peaks on Wednesdays could release new clips then. Likewise, producers who see their shows peaking after three weeks would know to release a new episode every three weeks, and someone whose material turns out to be popular in Spain might want to release the next video in Spanish.

"With this information, you can concentrate on creating compelling new content that appeals to your target audiences and post these videos on days you know these viewers are on the site," YouTube officials said in a blog entry announcing the program.

Upcoming features may indicate how viewers find a video, through a search, an outside link or YouTube’s share-with-a-friend feature, Chan said.

The new viewership breakdowns, like the current ones, will count on the number of times users start a video but not necessarily how many finish it. Geographic information is based on viewers’ numeric Internet Protocol address, the same mechanism Google uses to target ads by region.

Some data will still be limited to paid advertisers, including information on how many viewers make it through 25 percent, 50 percent or all of a video.

On the Net: http://youtube.com

With Firefox 3, Microsoft has reason to worry

Autor admin | 27.03.2008 | Category Open Source, Software

In the chronology of Internet browsers, Netscape came out earlier, but Microsoft figured out a way to do most of the same things at least as well, if not better. It didn’t hurt that the company violated the law as it mobilized to crush a nascent challenge to its desktop monopoly.

Still, it’s an incorrect rewrite of history to explain the triumph of Internet Explorer solely in terms of antitrust violations. Fact is that by the time Microsoft got around to the third incarnation of its Web browser, IE was arguably as good–if not better–than Netscape. We all know how that story finished up.

Nowadays, most PC users are on IE because, well, it’s the path of least resistance. But I’ve long been a big fan of Firefox and so have some 160 million people who now use the product. That’s a big enough number to get onto Microsoft’s radar. The funny thing is that this relatively small organization of some 150 people puts out a more elegant Web browser than Microsoft with its legion of developers. (For instance, there’s still no IE support of next-generation Java script.)

Coincidentally, next week marks 10 years since the release of the source code for Mozilla. Earlier Wednesday, I had an opportunity to hear more about what Mozilla’s up to. CEO John Lilly invited a group of bloggers to the company’s Mountain View, Calif., headquarters to talk tech. (Rafe Needleman from Webware has kept up a live blog of the product rollout. Check it out.)

I’d love to hear you chime in on this topic, but my biggest bugaboo about Web surfing remains security–and that’s where these folks are doing very interesting work. Among other items, pay attention to the following bullet points:

•  In FireFox 2, they shipped the product’s first anti-phishing features. Now Mozilla plans to include an anti-malware feature in the upcoming version of the browser.

•  With a click, you can get active information from a company’s SSL certificate in the URL to get information about the site to determine whether it’s kosher.

Mozilla also is tweaking the overall performance of the platform to extract better memory usage. The organization takes about a year between releases (though this newest version has taken a bit longer). Still, that’s an eternity faster than the MO over at Microsoft.

Chalk that up to bureaucracy as well as poor decision making. In particular, Microsoft’s 2001 decision to take its foot off the pedal after version 6.0 was a mistake I’m sure management wishes it could take back. Since then, the Web has gotten scarier and cooler, and Redmond has until recently been sitting on its laurels. That’s why Firefox has come out of nowhere to take anywhere between 17 percent and 28 percent of the market, depending on which research organization you trust.

At this rate, Mozilla’s got a great chance to add to those numbers. Until–if ever–Microsoft gets off its duff and comes up with better technology.

News.com

Motorola hits redial on handset biz

Autor admin | 26.03.2008 | Category Mobile & Wireless, Motorola

Motorola is hoping two is better than one.

On Wednesday, the company, whose cell phone business has been in a death spiral for several quarters, announced that after a two-month formal analysis, it has decided to split the company into two publicly traded entities.

One will handle handsets and accessories while the other will continue to concentrate on wireless broadband and enterprise communication products.

"Creating two industry-leading companies will provide improved flexibility, more tailored capital structures, and increased management focus–as well as more targeted investment opportunities for our shareholders," CEO Greg Brown said in a release.

The Mobile Devices business will handle the designs, manufacturing, and sales of mobile handsets and accessories, and will license a portfolio of intellectual property. The Broadband & Mobility Solutions business will handle service voice and data communication solutions and wireless broadband networks for enterprises and governments. It will also handle IP video, cellular, and high-speed broadband network infrastructure, and cable set-top receivers.

Investor Carl Icahn has been pressuring the company to separate out its mobile phone business, and has been engaged in a protracted legal struggle with the company regarding its future. Motorola offered up two board seats to Icahn this week, but the activist investor rejected the offer. Brown declined to comment on how this latest news will impact discussions with Icahn’s camp.

In some respects it looks as if Motorola is giving Icahn some of what he originally wanted. The company is splitting off the handset business to increase shareholder value. Details of the transaction, which, if it’s accepted by shareholders, would be complete in 2009, were not discussed during a conference call the company held Wednesday morning with investors and analysts.

Pressure from all quarters

Many experts agree that something had to be done. The company’s iconic cell phone division, which typically makes up more than half its revenue, hasn’t had a hit since the highly popular Razr. As a result, it’s seen its global market share plunge from more than 20 percent a year ago to just 12 percent today. And it’s fallen from second place in the cell phone market to third place, behind Nokia and Samsung Electronics.

To make matters worse, it doesn’t look like things are going to turn around anytime soon. During the company’s fourth-quarter conference call in January, Brown told investors that it would take longer than expected to turn around the troubled cell phone business. The company warned that revenue and market share would likely decline further in the first quarter. A week later, the company announced it was considering spinning off the division.

Over the last two months, Brown has emphasized the company’s commitment to its mobile business. Now the company is moving forward with a plan of action. Wall Street reacted positively Wednesday morning, boosting the company’s shares almost 3.5 percent, to $10.09 per share, over Tuesday’s close of $9.76 per share.

Uncertainties about the likely result–and preserving the brand

But many questions linger. For one, how will spinning off the business unit actually help the company get back on track? And then there is the question of brand. Motorola has an 80-year history as a communications provider. The company practically invented the cell phone industry in the 1980s. So what will it do with a brand it has spent billions of dollars and decades creating?

Brown gave vague answers to these questions during the conference call. He reasoned that splitting Motorola into two separate companies will allow management teams to focus and tailor their financials to the needs of those businesses.

Ellen Daley, an analyst with Forrester Research, agrees that splitting the company could be helpful in this regard.

"Separating (the handset business) into a dedicated unit allows (Motorola) the runway to fix some of its issues in supply chain, innovation," she said in an e-mail. "It is a fundamentally different business than the other half of their growing business, i.e. enterprise mobility, connected home and networks business."

It will also likely allow these other businesses more room to grow on their own, she said.

But even though it’s easy to see how Motorola’s other businesses might benefit from the separation, it’s still a bit unclear what will really be different in the handset division. The company’s problem is that it isn’t making products people want to buy.

The hope is that a separate company might be more nimble. And that, along with better design ideas, better cost structure, and better execution, is what the company really needs. Motorola still seems to be at least one or two design cycles behind its competitors in terms of cool new phones. While its rival Nokia made several handset and service announcements at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last month, highlighting new features like navigation, Motorola had nothing interesting to show at the conference besides a few refurbished handset designs and a rehashed announcement from the Consumer Electronics Show.

Brown acknowledged that new products are key to turning around the handset business. But he said the division needs to be separated to help attract new, top-level talent to lead the recovery. Brown is currently searching for a new CEO to head up the new company.

"We understand that this will be a product-led recovery. And we are taking steps now to ensure and solidify the recovery," he said. "But I think (this announcement) enables the opportunity for us to pick a world-class CEO."

So what about Motorola’s brand? Without its brand, many experts say, Motorola’s handset division is nothing, simply a collection of has-been and me-too products. Brown recognized the importance of brand and said the company is taking careful steps to figure out what to do next.

"The Motorola brand is strong and trusted and proven," he said. "It’s valuable to mobile devices as well as other assets in parts of the business. We will refine the brand strategy in next several months going forward."

But Forrester’s Daley believes that keeping the brand with the handset division really is the only viable option the company has.

"Good or bad–Motorola’s brand is for mobile devices," she said. "The broadband and mobility solutions unit will have to grow and separate their brand/value from the consumer-device company."

News.com

Service links Gmail and Outlook, bypassing Exchange

Autor admin | 26.03.2008 | Category Gmail

If you like Microsoft’s Outlook e-mail client software but hate the expense of licensing and running Exchange Server, Cemaphore Systems has a proposition for you: a subscription service that effectively lets people dump Exchange in favor of Google’s cloud-computing infrastructure.

The product, called Mailshadow for Google Apps, or MailShadow G, is being made available in a beta test version on Wednesday, according to the company. Cemaphore says the product ultimately will be licensed via a monthly subscription fee.

Cemaphore says the service "instantaneously synchronizes e-mail, calendars, and contacts between Outlook, Exchange, and Gmail." Translation: If you want to get rid of Exchange and run your e-mail back end on Google, this is the product for you.

Much has been made of Google’s challenge to Microsoft’s desktop application hegemony. One of the key reasons for Microsoft’s dominance is e-mail and Exchange, its e-mail and communications server. Once installed in companies, Exchange and Outlook form the backbone of a vital application that’s difficult to migrate away from or replace.

In many instances, companies must license, install, and maintain multiple copies of Exchange in order to keep their e-mail infrastructure working. For smaller companies, the overhead can be substantial.

A cost-efficient way to eliminate internal management of e-mail infrastructure in favor of a cloud-based service, linked to Google’s popular Gmail service, will likely appeal to many companies, large and small. Microsoft has in recent years worked with outside providers to offer hosted versions of Exchange.

Cemaphore Systems, founded in 2002, specializes in e-mail backup and caching systems that link to Exchange. The company says MailShadow will eventually work with other online e-mail services.

News.com

Windows XP may get another reprieve

Autor admin | 26.03.2008 | Category Microsoft, Windows

Although Microsoft is pushing hard to move everyone to the latest version of Windows, there are some market realities that are going to keep Windows XP around for some time–likely well beyond the current June deadline for large computer makers to stop selling the older operating system.

Microsoft has already extended the deadline once (XP was originally supposed to stop showing up on big-name PCs in January) and I would expect another extension to be announced soon.

The biggest area where XP is likely to stick around is in the nascent but growing market of low-cost, flash memory-based notebook computers, such as the Asus Eee PC. These devices are fertile ground for Linux, benefiting from its low cost and low memory requirements. Microsoft had to do some work just to get Windows XP onto the Eee PC and Vista would seem to be a non-starter.

Speaking of starters, another area where XP is likely to persist is in emerging markets. Microsoft conceded as much when it first extended the XP deadline last year. In addition to offering a few months reprieve for XP broadly, the software maker said it would offer the entry level Windows XP Starter Edition through 2010 for use on ultra low-cost PCs.

"We’re seeing great interest from our OEM partners in having Windows on these machines, such as pre-installing them with Starter edition in over 100 emerging market countries worldwide," Microsoft VP Mike Nash said in a statement in September. "That continues to be a trend we’re keeping our eye on, as even though we expect hardware costs to continue to drop, it reaffirms for us that not all customers want the same thing from their computers."

But it’s not just Starter edition that people want. To compete against Linux, Microsoft needs full Windows XP on these devices. There are more and more devices like the Eee PC cropping up and they are finding interested buyers, not just in emerging markets, but in mature markets where people are willing to trade a few features for getting a low-cost, light machine that allows full Web browsing on the go.

Publicly the company is still sticking to the revised June deadline, but Microsoft has shown a willingness to make changes in the past. My big question is whether it will extend the deadline only for certain types of computers. There are plenty of mainstream models today where XP remains an option, particularly on build-to-order machines from the likes of Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell.

News.com

Yahoo supports Google social network applications

Autor admin | 25.03.2008 | Category Google, Yahoo

NEW YORK - Yahoo Inc said on Tuesday that it supports a program by archrival Google Inc to develop applications for social networks and will help create a joint foundation to keep it alive.

Google launched its OpenSocial network in November to lure developers already creating popular Web applications on social networks like Facebook.

Yahoo, Google and News Corp-owned MySpace said on Tuesday they will create the OpenSocial Foundation to maintain a neutral, community-governed forum for developing applications. It will be set up as a non-profit entity, with assets to be assigned to the new organization by July 1.

Reuters

BBC Says its Web Site is Unblocked in China

Autor admin | 25.03.2008 | Category Internet News

The BBC says its English-language Web site now appears fully available to Internet users in China after years of being blocked.

The corporation said staff at its bureau in Beijing are able to access stories that would normally be blocked and that traffic from China on Tuesday was much higher than usual. Even stories on sensitive subjects like Tibet are now available, the BBC said.

But the Chinese-language Web site still appears to be blocked, said the BBC.

The move, which is unlikely without government approval, comes as the Chinese government is facing a growing global backlash over the recent actions of its military in Tibet in response to deadly rioting in the region. China says 19 people were killed in the violence while international organizations and the government-in-exile say over 100 people died.

Major foreign news organizations routinely see their Web sites blocked in China but the ban was extended to include YouTube and Google News in the wake of the Tibet protests in an apparent attempt to stop the spread of footage of the riots.

The incident brought the issue of Tibet on to the world stage at a time when China is trying to promote a positive image to world ahead of the Olympic games, which are scheduled to open in Beijing on Aug. 8.

In the wake of the troubles in Tibet, foreign journalists were kicked out of the province and security forces in neighboring provinces also hindered the work of the foreign media.

On Tuesday as the BBC’s English-language Web site was becoming available to local Internet users the Chinese Foreign Ministry said it would allow 10 foreign reporters to visit Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, from Wednesday.

China had previously said that it would allow reporters greater freedom to travel and report in the country in the run-up to the games.

Yahoo!

Justice Department OKs Sirius, XM Satellite Radio Merger

Autor admin | 25.03.2008 | Category Mobile & Wireless

The Justice Department on Monday approved the proposed merger between Sirius and XM satellite radio companies, clearing a major hurdle in the deal struck more than a year ago.

The companies said in a brief statement that the Justice Department informed them that it would not try to block the merger first proposed in February 2007. Stockholders from both companies gave their approval in November.

The deal still has to be approved by the Federal Communications Commission, which is unlikely to go against the Justice Department’s decision. The agency, however, could impose restrictions based on objections from opponents of the merger. The FCC is expected to make a decision in the coming weeks.

When first announced, experts had said the merger would face tough scrutiny from regulators, given that the deal would create a satellite radio monopoly. The two companies, however, argued that they faced stiff competition from many types of audio entertainment, including conventional radio, Apple iPods, mobile phones, and other forms of music and radio programming.

Both companies are losing millions of dollars a year, mostly from high fixed costs, such as launching satellites. In addition, the companies have had to enter bidding wars for high-priced entertainment, such as for shock jock Howard Stern and Major League Baseball.

According to the companies, a merger would enable them to cut costs by consolidating music channels and sharing back-office staff. Subscribers would benefit by being able to listen to programming from either company from the same receiver. The latter, however, would require a substantial amount of engineering work, given that one company’s receivers today are incompatible with the other company’s programming.

In addition, subscribers would benefit from tiered pricing, which means they would pay less for accessing a limited number of programs, the companies said. Each service today costs $12.99 a month.

InformationWeek